Asylum
by WhiteRosesHaveBlackThorns
Summary: Namine is dead and Riku is in an asylum. What help can a visit from their daughter bring? For the Namiku contest between Blueberry Absinth and I.


Nameless. That was the day.

The day was nothing, nothing was the day. Nothing was the night, either. It all just blurred together like some insignificant collage he was stuck in forever, whirling around in his own mind like it was a whirlpool.

How could anything matter with her gone? With her…

_No_, he told himself over and over. _She's not dead. She's just… sleeping. In a deep hole. Forever._

His excuses for her absence, which were always weak at best, were all that held him to this world. This torture.

One day, perhaps she was at a wedding. Another, visiting an out-of-town relative. He could spend hours imagining where she'd been, what she'd done, when she came home.

_Home._

* * *

"Is he still… you know…?" she whispered concernedly. The doctor- psychiatrist, whatever- nodded morosely.

"You can visit him if you like. He's not angry anymore. It's safe," the doctor said. The girl felt anger well up in her, as well as hot tears threatening to spill.

"I think I'm safe with my own _father_, thank you very much," she said, almost shoving the doctor out of the way and smashing the white-cushioned door open.

What she saw was way too much for her to handle.

Her father lay huddled on a tiny white cot, with crisp white sheets and a thin white blanket wrapped around him. He faced the wall and rocked back and forth, his lank silver hair gleaming in the florescent light.

Although the room was large, it was empty except for the corner where her father was. The walls and ceilings were covered in a least an inch of bouncy, startlingly-white cushion, and even the lights were high up enough that no human- without a very tall ladder, that is- could ever reach them, as well as the air vents.

The white scared her. Her mother's favorite color, it symbolized pure love, innocence, and beauty. Now, in this almost-empty room with this almost-empty man, the white shone to the point of pain and burned right through her skull, a constant reminder of what had been and what could never be.

* * *

The door being opened for the first time in months startled him enough that he actually stopped his daydreaming to turn around and see what the commotion was.

And what he saw was wonderful, surreal, and terrifying.

_An angel…_

An angel dressed in pure black, with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Although she had no wings, he was certain she was an angel.

His angel.

"N-Nami?" he whimpered, shaking. His feeble hand reached out toward her, but she frowned, her perfect face wrinkling into one of a confused human. Her rose-petal lips parted, and her voice was sweet music as he heard her say,

"No, Dad. I'm not Mom. I'm not Namine."

Now _he _was confused. Surely, the angel was mistaken. He could see his wife, a beautiful angel, standing before him. Why would she say she wasn't who she most definitely was?

* * *

The pain she'd been feeling for the last ten years tripled immediately.

It took everything she had not to bolt out of that room right then and there. She gathered up her wits, stepped toward her father until they were in easy conversation distance, and said softly,

"Dad, you're just dreaming. Wake up. Mom's not here anymore."

He shook his head, his outstretched arm retracting back to hug his knees to his chest. "No," he insisted. "You _are _Namine. You're my life."

She couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks as she stepped closer and swept her hand across her father's cheek, humming the lullaby he used to sing to her when she was a baby.

After a while, she cleared her throat and murmured, looking right into the sea-blue eyes mirrored in her own face,

"Don't you remember, Dad? Don't you remember me? I'm your little girl. Your baby. Don't you remember when you used to tell me stories and- and pick me up and fly me around the house? You wanted to go to Africa, but Mom would never let you. Then you'd put me down and pick _her _up, and tickle her until she laughed so hard her face turned red. You told her to loosen up. Then she'd kiss you and go finish dinner while you taught me all of the countries in Africa. Don't you remember?"

All she got was a vacant, expectant stare, like an overgrown puppy waiting to be adopted. She sighed and stepped back.

"Where are you going, Nami?" he asked once she'd gotten halfway across the room.

"I'm not… I love you, Dad," the girl said, sighing again as she made her way across the rest of the room and to the door.

"Don't… Don't leave me!" she heard him cry before the doctor slammed the door shut and locked it. The girl made a promise to herself, then- She was an orphan. No mother. No father. Just herself, and the nurse's very, very bitter,

"Merry Christmas."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so it's a little longer than 500 words. But I couldn't stop typing… Must be the music…**

**Anywho, comment on either Blueberry Absinth's or my story declaring your vote. We'll tally them up at the end of the week (April 10) and in our next updates say who won.**


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